Chapter 15—Delayed Offside

Vi was the queen of delusional denial.

She’d lived most of her life doing her own thing and dealing with the consequences later, and not much had changed. Matt being the perfect case in point. Their situation was rife with disastrous possibilities, but Vi was a survivor, and she’d roll with the punches and enjoy what she had while she had it. She would feel no guilt when it came to not revealing certain things from her past, because that person didn’t exist anymore.

As far as Matt and the kids, she wasn’t sure what she was doing and where their relationship was going, but she was pretty damn sure she was taking this journey without a seat belt or airbags. If they crashed and burned, she would most likely end up on life support.

Enough of such sad thoughts. Vi trusted in the universe to take care of her, even if she didn’t always understand its methods.

That night, Matt drove her to the club so Vi could give her notice, pick up her last paycheck, and say goodbye to everyone, especially Steph. Abandoning Steph caused her more than a stab of guilt, but she wasn’t sure what more she could do. It wasn’t as if they could throw Steph in the trunk and kidnap her. Yeah, just what she needed, another criminal charge.

“I’ll be right back.” Vi kissed Matt on the cheek and ran inside. She said goodbye to Benjamin and the bouncers, along with the girls, pausing at Steph’s dressing table. The girl hadn’t said a word to her since she’d walked in the door and was applying her makeup.

“Hey.” Vi pulled up an empty chair and sat down.

“So you’re leaving?” Steph said, her voice flat and hollow. Her hand shook as she put on her mascara.

“Yes. I’m going to work for a friend and start a dance studio.”

“I’m happy for you.” Steph’s eyes held a hint of accusation, and she didn’t look happy at all.

“You could go with me.” Vi already knew the answer, but she had to try one last time.

Steph hesitated and shook her head. “I can’t. Gino—”

“Doesn’t deserve you.” There, she’d said it. Vi braced herself for the fallout.

Steph refused to look her in the eye. “He loves me, and he needs me to do this for a little while longer.”

“You’ve been saying that for months. Are you dancing at the scuzzy place?”

Steph nodded and ducked her head, letting her hair form a curtain across her face. Vi wrung her hands, uncertain what to do next, while the universe stayed silent and unhelpful.

“Steph, come with me. This life isn’t for you. I enjoyed the dancing for a while, but you never have. You’re miserable. You can stay with me. I’ll help you get a fresh start.” Vi punctuated her words with a reassuring smile. How she’d wished someone would say those words to her years ago.

Steph’s tear-streaked face turned hard and immovable. “No, you don’t understand. No one understands. We’re in love. We’re just going through some tough times.”

“Steph, get moving. You’re up next,” one of the other girls yelled from the doorway. Steph stood quickly.

“I’ll be fine.” Grimacing, she gave Vi a sad smile and hurried from the room.

Vi sighed and turned to find the eyes of one of the more veteran dancers watching her. “You can’t save ’em all, honey.”

“I know. Keep an eye on her, will you?”

“I would, but I’m leaving, too.” Zena smiled, and Vi was struck by the fact that she had no clue what her real name was.

“You are?”

“Yeah, my boyfriend doesn’t like me stripping. I got myself a job bartending out at the beach at Moclips. We found a cute little cabin near the ocean.”

“I’m so happy for you.”

“I’m happy for you, too, sweetie. Stripping isn’t a long-term career path. I have plans for my future.” They hugged. With a wave Vi left, and she, too, didn’t look back. Her life was ahead of her now, with or without Matt. She put the stripper Vi in the same locked box where convict Vi had been exiled, never to be seen again. She was reinvented Vi, once more.

A businesswoman, a teacher, and Matt’s—

She frowned. Unable to define what she was to Matt or what he was to her. No matter. The future would unfold as it was meant to unfold.

For now, she’d work for Izzy, be a nanny to the boys until their permanent nanny came on in a few weeks. She’d study how to start up a business. Live in the moment. That’s what she’d do. And these moments were the best of life.

She prided herself on being an optimist, but old pessimistic habits had a tendency to pop up at the most inopportune times—like now. Right now Negative Vi was texting her brain constantly saying what a fool she was, she didn’t deserve this, and disaster lurked right around the corner.

She hated Negative Vi. She blocked the bitch’s texts, straightened her shoulders, and flipped her off.

Take that, bitch.

 

The bad thing about blocking text messages was they were still there, but a person didn’t see them.

Maybe she’d put the cart before the horse one more time. Maybe she’d burned old bridges before building the new one in front of her. Maybe she’d reinvented herself so many times, she didn’t know who she really was.

She would not regret her decisions. She would not wallow in fear. Life was about taking risks and believing in yourself. She’d been offered the chance of a lifetime with the man of a lifetime, and she’d make the most of it. No regrets.

 

* * * *

 

Matt stared at the back door of the club, as if he could will it to open by merely wishing it so. He’d wanted to go in there with Vi, but she’d laughed at him and told him to stay where he was. Matt checked hockey scores on the NHL app, scrolled through his email, and sighed. He didn’t like technology much. He had a Facebook page, but the team’s publicist handled it. He didn’t know how to log in and didn’t care. Vi didn’t do social media either, barely used her phone, and mistrusted the internet. They did have technophobia in common.

A slow smile crossed his face as she walked out the door.

“How’d it go?” Matt asked as Vi got in the car.

“Good.” She didn’t meet his gaze but stared straight ahead.

Okay, he might be a clueless guy, but even he wasn’t that obtuse. “Did something happen in there?” His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. If some asshole groped her or—

“No, not really. I’m worried about one of the dancers. She doesn’t belong there. I’m pretty sure her boyfriend is abusive. He’s making her strip because he’s too much of a lazy-ass to work, not that he could hold down a job if he wanted to.”

“I get the impression you don’t like the guy.” Matt attempted to lighten her mood with teasing, but his attempt fell flat. She frowned.

“I tried to get her to leave with me. She wouldn’t.” Vi sighed and fastened her seat belt.

Matt reached over and took her hand, lacing her fingers with his. “You can’t save them all, ma chère.”

His use of the French term of endearment brought a slight smile to her face. She squeezed his hand. “I don’t deserve you.”

He chuckled. “I think you have it backward.”

“Keep thinking that.”

Matt’s phone chimed, indicating a text message, and Al’s name flashed on the screen. While it wasn’t unusual for Al to be working late on a weekend, he never texted just to shoot the shit. This had to be serious. Matt had never claimed to be psychic, didn’t really believe in such crap, yet icy cold fear gripped him with a sense of foreboding. Before putting his car in gear, he picked up the phone to read the message, well aware Vi’s eyes were on him.

“What is it?” Her voice sounded tight and worried.

“It’s nothing. Nothing at all. Just some contract issues, but Al will handle them.”

He could feel her eyes on his. Knowing he was a lousy liar, he masked his concerns with a grin, followed by a brain-numbing kiss.

“Let’s go home,” he said when he broke the kiss. Vi nodded and rubbed her hands over her face. She sighed deeply.

“Matt, you’d tell me if it was something serious, wouldn’t you?”

He chuckled, but the sound was forced. “Yeah, sure, I would.”

He put the SUV in gear and pulled out of the lot. Vi twisted in her seat and watched her old life disappear in the distance down a rain-sodden Seattle street.

 

* * * *

 

Vi was walking out of her Dance Through the Ages class when her phone chimed. She fished it out of her messy, overflowing purse and glanced at the display. She didn’t recognize the number and let it go to voice mail. A few seconds later, the notification for a voice mail message popped up on the screen. Solicitors didn’t usually leave messages.

Scratching her cheek, she regarded the phone with suspicion. Her intuition was in full alert mode. Fear gripped her, offering a warning this message could change her life, and not in a good way. She ignored the message and walked to her car, driving to Matt’s home with the phone sitting beside her in menacing silence. She didn’t trust cell phones, but they were a necessary evil.

She opened the garage door with the remote Matt had given her last week and parked Hermie in the third spot in the three-car garage. Matt had left on a road trip this morning, and she missed him already.

Vi put her purse and phone on the kitchen counter. Luther looked up from his now-favorite spot on the back of the family room couch. He said “hello” in cat-speak, stood, stretched, and began to engage in one of his favorite pastimes, licking his butt.

Oh, to be a cat. Cats truly lived in the moment. They didn’t care what others thought of them, and their demands were swift and simple. Pet me. Feed me. Check out the headless mouse I left as a gift on your doorstep, and you’re welcome.

Luther looked up from his butt bath to cast a superior cat smirk in her direction, as if he read her mind.

“I have no desire to be a great hunter. You can keep that distinction all to yourself.”

Luther blinked at her and continued his grooming regimen.

Vi was avoiding the inevitable. The phone might be ignored, but not forgotten. She picked it up. The area code wasn’t local to the area or even the state of Washington. Nor was it from her home state of Nevada. She didn’t recognize those three threatening numbers. Sighing, she punched the button to play the message and held it up to her ear.

Violet? I need you to call me as soon as possible. We have a private matter to discuss.

Vi frowned at the phone, unfairly blaming the device for giving her so little to go on. The voice was a woman’s, probably in her thirties, with a smug lilt to her tone as if she considered Vi far beneath her. She reminded Vi of the young, ambitious prosecuting attorney who’d attacked her during the trial with an air of ruthless superiority. Vi hadn’t liked her—at all.

Stalling, she poured a glass of water and checked the time. The boys would be home from school in an hour. Whatever this important call was, she’d either need to call now or wait until the boys were in bed. She considered Googling the area code, but being internet-averse, she didn’t.

Vi heaved a resigned sigh. Her avoidance tactics weren’t buying her anything but a headache. She picked up the phone and stared at the screen, long and hard. She sighed again, touched the icon to take her to the Recent Calls screen, and tapped the number for the mystery caller.

Holding her breath, she waited. The same voice on the voice mail message answered after the second ring. “Good, you called me back,” she said before Vi had a chance to speak one word. Something in the woman’s tone set Vi on edge, mostly likely the air of superiority as annoying as a leaky faucet.

Vi’s first inclination was a knee-jerk response as tactful as who the fuck are you? She opted not to show her roots and play along, as if this call was a good thing when she knew to the depths of her soul, it wasn’t.

“You have me at a disadvantage. You know who I am, but I don’t have a fu—a clue who you are.”

“Well, I’d like to say I’m about to be your worst nightmare, but that would be crass, wouldn’t it?”

Vi’s chest squeezed in a vise of fear and dread. Somehow she managed to sound normal when she spoke. “You obviously don’t know me well. When it comes to worst nightmares, I’m in a league all my own.” Vi applauded her clever retort. Take that, mystery bitch.

“I’m Matt’s wife.”

A knife sliced through Vi and drew blood. “Matt doesn’t have a wife.”

“Semantics. I’m the woman he married and the mother of his children.”

“Oh, you’re her?” Vi’s voice drizzled contempt.

“Let’s cut out the niceties.”

“Let’s do.” Not that they were engaging in niceties.

“I’m moving to Seattle to be closer to my boys.”

“It’s good you’re finally making them a priority in your life. How many years has it been since you’ve seen them?”

The silence on the other end of the phone stretched to infinity, but Brianna hadn’t hung up. Vi couldn’t be that lucky. “Why are you calling me?”

“To offer a friendly warning. My mother and I are concerned about the quality of care Matt is providing to my boys. You can imagine our shock when we discovered he was hooking up with the likes of you. We had you investigated. The stripping was bad enough, but we uncovered more. So much more, Violet Ames.”

At the sound of her former last name, Vi’s entire body stiffened, and she broke out in a sweat. She wiped her forehead and fought off the nausea threatening to heave up her lunch. “What do you want?” she whispered into the phone.

“I want you gone. Completely. I do not want my children exposed on a regular basis to a stripper who also happens to be a murderous drunk. You thought you had it made when you managed to get your devious hooks into a nice, naive guy like Matt, didn’t you?”

“Now, Brie—can I call you Brie? You’re projecting your own intentions onto me.”

“You bitch.”

“Right back atcha.”

“I’m filing for joint custody unless you disappear and never resurface. I understand you’re good at that. My attorney assures me with the dirt we have on you, we could keep the boys away from Matt indefinitely.”

“You don’t want those boys. You just want child support.”

“Let’s see Matt prove my intentions in court. We’ll let them determine who’s the unfit parent—the one who couldn’t afford to move closer to see her children or the one who allows a stripper/ex-con to play nanny while he’s on road trips. He wasn’t even responsible enough to run a background check on you. I guess getting in your pants was a good enough check for him.” Her words bitch-slapped Vi and sent her reeling.

“Fuck you,” Vi said, throwing any semblance of politeness out the window.

“I don’t do women, but if I did, I wouldn’t pick a slut like you. Too much potential for disease. Think about what I said. We’re filing papers next week. Nice talking to you.”

The phone went dead. Vi shook from her toes to her forehead. The phone dropped from her fingers and clattered to the hardwood floor. Her world spun in dizzying circles, and bile rose in her throat. Hauling herself to her feet, she staggered to the powder room of the entryway, and dropped to her knees in front of the toilet, heaving her guts out.

Quite a while later, the sound of pounding feet on the entryway floor roused her from her stupor of misery.

“Vi?”

She raised her head from the toilet and groaned, meeting Andy’s concerned gaze. Behind him stood Joey, his brow furrowed with worry.

“Hi,” she said groggily. She’d spent the past hour alternating between hysterical tears and dry heaves.

“Are you sick?” Joey asked, peeking around his taller brother.

“You could say that.” Vi managed a weak smile.

Luther slipped between Andy’s legs and rubbed up against her, offering his brand of cat comfort.

Vi struggled to her feet, turned on the sink, and tossed water on her face. She looked like hell, absolute hell, as if she’d seen the end of the world, and it wasn’t pretty. She’d certainly seen the end of hers.

She turned and gazed down at the boys, regarding her with twin expressions of concern. Joey ran to her and hugged her.

“I love you, Vi.”

Andy joined him. “I love you, too, Vi.”

In that moment she knew she had to go. She couldn’t do this to them. She couldn’t put them through a hell of a custody battle, losing their dad, and living with a mother who saw them as nothing more than a paycheck.

She loved them, too, and because she loved them, she had to do the unselfish thing.

She had to leave.